Culture East/West

Nowadays, much is said about the uniqueness of regional Cultures. I just did three weeks on the U.S. East Coast. I noticed the culture, so I decided I might just as well unfold the legs of my own card table and set-up right here and sell my pin-hole take on observed U.S. East Coast Culture:

-        We caught our east-bound flight at PDX. We landed at BWI. In Maryland and Massachusetts, you are always 200 miles from a Starbuck’s, but within 2 miles of a Dunkin’ Donuts; outside those giants, never was heard – the encouraging word “Barista” - except at Liz’s Café , 31 Bradford St., out on the tip of Cape Cod in Provincetown, Mass.

-        In Maryland and Massachusetts, two micro-brews were observed – one per state.

-        In Maryland, on the Chesapeake, it seemed that if you have built a new, two-car garage and it has a lockable side-door, you can name it as a town and apply for a zip code and open up a Post Office.

-        I didn’t expect it, but “Boeing” is spelled the same on the East Coast.

-        All of the east-coast covid-masked airport/airline employees speak the same language – whatever it is.

-        On the East Coast, the effects of climate change are not just a “Breaking News Alert”; on Chesapeake Bay, at high tide, the dock-side restaurants don’t make you wade their parking lot to the front door, but rather lay down causeways of truck-bed pallets.

In future, responding to my U.S. East Coast experience with a personal action item, to restrict aircraft payload to a starvation minimum, I will jam only half a pound of Peet’s French Roast in my carry-on.